Overheating

Dust…Frequent overheating will damage the motherboard! Here is an expanded article on heat and laptops.

Symptoms:

The laptop starts beeping, freezes, restarts by itself or shuts down after it has been on for some time, typically 10-15 minutes or more. If you start it again, it does the same thing after just a few minutes.

Troubleshooting:

Most laptops overheat because the fan intake is blocked either from placing the laptop on a soft surface or by dust. In either case you will need to let it cool down before turning it back on (may take up to 30 min). If you suspect that dust is blocking the fan/heatsink, get a compressed air can and try to clean it now (that will cool down the laptop too).

Sometimes overheating is caused by a fan malfunction. If the fan is completely stuck, the laptop will show an error message immediately after starting. However in rare cases the fan’s fins are just loose or broken and won’t move enough air to cool the laptop.

In either case you should try cleaning the fan(s) and heatsink(s) with compressed air. That is best done outside, as usually there is a surprising amount of dust accumulated in there. If the laptop continues to overheat, you will need to bring it to a repair shop.

Also if you have dropped the laptop, the screws holding the heatsink may have broken off. In this case the laptop will overheat in just a couple of minutes as the CPU has lost contact with the heatsink and is not cooled at all.

Dust…

56 Comments

  • #56 by Masroor Shere April 9, 2013 at: 7:27 am

    My Sony Vaio E Series VPCEA16FG Laptop freezes giving a continuous beep sound. Please Help !!!

  • #55 by Terance March 17, 2013 at: 10:00 am

    What is the cause if laptop powered but no display and can’t turn it off

  • #54 by hari March 8, 2013 at: 11:38 am

    I bought a netbook,i notice a sound from it,its may be of fan and harddisk but when I start browsin I notice that sound is little louder y?

  • #53 by Tiffany December 31, 2012 at: 4:00 pm

    Hey, I recently bought a new battery or my Samsung NC10 Netbook. I turned it on and the fan keeps making some sort of ticking noise? It sounds as if the fan is trying to turn but it can’t and im wondering if thats the reason why it wont charge properly seeing as the airduct to the fan and the place to plug in the laptop are on the same side. Help?

  • #52 by Ganesh December 24, 2012 at: 8:54 pm

    hi,
    I am using Dell Inspiron laptop. my laptop was shutdown for two days but still it was beeping.

  • #51 by On Call Flood Service December 14, 2012 at: 10:36 am

    I have a toshiba satellite which got absolutely devastated by overheating. Ruined my computer.

  • #50 by Zane December 7, 2012 at: 1:07 am

    Thanks for these information. I wanted to buy buy desktop computers online. Is there a way to test the possibility of these computers from overheating before actually buying them?

  • #49 by Mike Cloud December 3, 2012 at: 9:37 am

    @ Tyrone: If you can hear windows sounds of activities while in the black screen, i suggest you change screen.

  • #48 by Tyrone November 21, 2012 at: 11:00 pm

    my laptop sometimes makes a beeping sound followed by a loud “tick” at the end. I dont know what is causing this.

  • #47 by suhrita November 20, 2012 at: 11:28 pm

    i have a lenovo ,nowa days when the flap of the laptop moves the laptop becomes blank even if i switch it on then also sometimes it becomes blank a grey colur screen like with nothing visible.please help me